Ek's Note. We are feverishly going through the many entries for the Next Great Blogger contest. We expect to have the field of 64 to be announced early next week. In the meantime, here is our newest blogger, Josh...
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Hey everybody. My name is Josh, and I'll be doing my best to engage the Hockeybuzz masses in somewhat intelligent conversation about the Stars as your new Dallas Stars blogger. I'm a 22 year old student of the University of North Texas from Fort Worth. I'm majoring in history, and I hope to complete that degree in the fall. My mom and her friend have had season tickets for the Stars since the dreadful 1995/96 season. I've probably been to 125 or so Stars regular and post season games in my Stars watching career with those season tickets or by buying my way in.
My blogging about the Stars really started about two weeks ago. I was tired of the fact that the Stars were getting virtually no national coverage whatsoever. So I began posting game recaps under the handle "Texhorns02". One of the main issues that was on my mind was that Dallas was the only NHL team not covered by anyone for the site. Ironically enough that's my job now, and I plan to provide the kind of coverage that I wanted to see from the next Stars blogger. There are a lot of different things I'd like to do that you see other bloggers on the site do such as live game blogs that I would like to bring to Stars fans if there is any interest. If you ever have any questions, comments, or suggestions feel free to email me at
[email protected].
Now on to some actual hockey news. As you may already know Steve Ott was handed a 3 game suspension yesterday by the NHL for a hit on Jordan Leopold that has caused him now to miss a game and a half. Ott received no penalty on the play, and from where I was sitting (306 in the far corner from the hit) I didn't really see anything malicious. I heard he left his feet a little bit, but thats about it. Isn't 3 games for a first time offender a litlte much? I know these guys make a ton of money, but 12,000 (3 game checks) is a hefty price to pay for a first time offender.
What does this mean for the Stars in their next 3 games? For starters it means they'll be without their spark plug. Ott has single-handedly taken a few teams off of their game this year with his chirpy play. He will definitely be missed tomorrow night against Detroit. It also means the lines Dave Tippett rolled with on Sunday against Colorado will have to be changed. Stu Barnes can easily be shifted up to the 3rd line in Ott's place which will likely leave Barch/Lundqvist/Peterson/Winchester to battle for 4th line time.
The Ott suspension isn't good for Dallas, but it's significantly easier to cover for than another injury on the blueline. Sergei Zubov is still on the IR, Philippe Boucher is out for a couple more weeks, and Matt Nickerson is walking wounded. It's great that Dallas is getting to find what they have in Mark Fistric and Nik Grossman, but what are the Stars gaining from being able to use Dan Jancevski regularly? I would love to get all the defenders back as soon as possible, but at this point I'd be thrilled to get just one back. Jancevski scares me everytime he touches the ice.
Josh
PS: If you want in on some NHL2008 online team play my friend Derek and I play a lot of it. Just email me your gamertag and we'll play.
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